What is Aplos?

Aplos is a fund accounting tool which is built and designed to address the needs of typically small and medium-sized nonprofit organizations and churches. The nonprofit accounting software, which is available as a stand alone program or as a part of Aplos’ integrated suite which includes its online donation, donation management, and church management software, aims to offer a multi-fund friendly solution that allows users to view and track their financial data and transactions both in high level and granular.

Described as a simple and effective accounting tool which is also used by CPAs and bookkeepers who would like to access multiple books of different organizations, Aplos has the capabilities to provide accounting information, track cash flows, generate thorough reports on income, expenses, assets and liabilities; and help nonprofit organizations and churches manage their budget by enabling them to apply financial forecasting. Its effective reporting functionality aids user to quickly prepare and complete the Annual Form 990.

Overview of Aplos Benefits

A distinguishable feature of Aplos as an online accounting software for nonprofits is that it provides users the ability to create a chart of accounts that are customizable. Chart of accounts is used to systematically record transactions and pull up financial and accounting reports. Aplos allows users to set up the different types of accounts which include asset, liability, income, expenses, and equity. For instance, if they would like to track and record how much money they are getting and what transactions are generating such amount, they could set up an income account for contributions, grants, CD sales, or book sales. When it comes to expenses, they would be able to create an account to manage salaries, wages, subscriptions, online event postings, or office supplies.

In creating a chart of accounts, users would be able to set up funds which include general, building, mission, and special projects. They can create more additional fund categories if they want to in order for them to determine and track their cash flow. Fund categories are important as they show the specific amount being set aside for a particular fund. Then, as they set up their accounts, they would be able to create accounts within an account group and create new account groups as well.

As an illustration, they could set up the General Income as the account group and the accounts within it are Contributions Income, Income, Missions Income, Fundraiser Donations. An account for General Income could also be included within the Contributions Income. If they would like to add another account group which could Special Projects Income, the software would also enable them to do that. Special Projects Income could be comprised of Book Sales and Special Events accounts.This feature of Aplos is very useful especially when generating and running accounting reports for nonprofits and churches as well.

Another feature of Aplos is its budget management functionality. A special component of this feature is that it enables users to set up projected values or expected amounts for each of their income and expenses accounts and their total projected value. For instance, they could input $12,000 as their projected value for their contributions income account if they are expecting to receive such amount for the current fiscal year.

After they finished accomplishing their accounts with all of their projected values, they could go back to the Budgeting section of the dashboard after transactions have been recorded and run a Budget To Actual Report. In this report, they would be able to review the Budget To Actual Income Statement that shows the total of their actual income against the total projected budget. With this feature, users would be able to create plans as they manage their finances.

Additionally, Aplos has a feature that allows users to easily track specific transactions and the amount of money involved or produced by such transactions. This feature is used to generate income statements and reports. The tags that are available are 1099 tags, custom tags, and 990 tags. If users would like to know how much money their organization is spending for their non-employee vendors, they could enable the 1099 tags.

Meanwhile, to be able to easily fill out the full Form 990 as a requirement especially for larger nonprofit organizations, 990 tags could also be enabled, in effect, when users enter the transactions, the system would help them select the applicable 990 category and generate a 990 income statement. In custom tagging, they could set up custom tags for events to determine their profitability. Custom tags are used for projects that do not actually have value as they are not accounts or funds but the purpose of applying them is only for tracking.

Enterprises have diverse wants and requirements and no software application can be ideal in such a condition. It is pointless to try to find a perfect off-the-shelf software product that fulfills all your business wants. The intelligent thing to do would be to customize the application for your specific wants, staff member skill levels, finances, and other aspects. For these reasons, do not hurry and subscribe to well-publicized trendy applications. Though these may be widely used, they may not be the ideal fit for your particular needs. Do your homework, look into each short-listed application in detail, read a few Aplos reviews, speak to the vendor for clarifications, and finally settle for the application that provides what you require.

How Much Does Aplos Cost?

Aplos Pricing Plans:

Free trial

Aplos Starter Plan

$25/month

Aplos Standard Plan

$40/month

Aplos Advanced Plan

$120/month

Aplos offers three enterprise pricing plans for users to choose from. Give the details a look, and select the best plan for your company:

Aplos Starter Plan – $25/month

Fund Accounting

Reporting

Budgeting

Aplos Standard Plan – $40/month

All Starter Features Plus:

Contributions Management

Manage Recurring Donations

Donation Tracking

Track Special Gifts

Aplos Advanced Plan – $120/month

All Standard Features Plus:

Custom Reporting

Budget By Fund

Project/Dept/Fundraiser Reporting

Automatic Recurring Transactions

Form 990 Reporting

Fixed Assets and Allocations (Optional Upgrade)

User Satisfaction

We realize that when you make a decision to buy Accounting Software it’s important not only to see how experts evaluate it in their reviews, but also to find out if the real people and companies that buy it are actually satisfied with the product. That’s why we’ve created our behavior-based Customer Satisfaction Algorithm™ that gathers customer reviews, comments and Aplos reviews across a wide range of social media sites. The data is then presented in an easy to digest form showing how many people had positive and negative experience with Aplos. With that information at hand you should be equipped to make an informed buying decision that you won’t regret.

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